brain training session 1

I cut my finger on one of the ampules on the morning I have been looking forward to - my first brain training session.

Still hitting the snooze button on awakening but more calm on the tube. The lack of caffeine in my system is the big factor here I think.

I feel disgruntled, though. Today I am full of doubt whether this treatment is going to work and whether the investment of my time and money will pay off.

I go upstairs for the session - Dr P wires me up with I think three electrodes. Two on the top of my head and one behind my right ear. 

The computer programme measures three waves that my brain makes. These are expressed as 'thermos' i.e. bar graphs with thermometer type bulbs at their base. Inside the base there's a minus or plus sign. 

The first 'thermo' is black - a pumping black line pulsing like mercury in a thermometer. That's my delta wave and I have too much of it. Over on the right is a yellow bar and it's showing my high beta wave - I'm also pumping out too much of that. In the middle, the green one has a plus sign in the bulb - I need to create more of it.

One session of ten minutes is for my prefrontal cortex.

Then a second session focuses on my sensory motor strip.

Apparently the high jumping yellow bar - excess fast wave - is a classic fatigue disorder.

I tell Dr P how depressed I was about giving up coffee and how uncertain I was about Homeopathy. I used to be a believer in all things from a Health food store but I've recently read a number of articles that say there is no scientific evidence at all for homeopathy.

Dr P says she understands. As a scientist, she loves the hard data. But she has also has seen unequivocal change in many patients taking homeopathic remedies like the ones I am taking. You can't do blanket control testing for Homeopathic remedies, she explains. 'It's so specific. You and I could have the same condition, but the same remedy will not treat us both.' We are complex and unique. Dr P finds the effects of Homeopathic remedies 'powerful'.

Anyway back to the graphs. I still have far too much fast and slow waves....'possibly one trying to regulate the other.' Although I have had the three car accidents and one drop on my head, I suddenly feel impelled to ask Dr P. 'Can this condition come about due to emotion, for example, being hyper-vigilant as a child.' 'Yes, possibly,' she says.

DR P talks about getting a adrenal test - it could be expensive so she wants me to know how much so I can make a decision on it.

DR P keeps popping up different graphs. There's the kind of earthquake scratchy line graph and another graph that fills the screen from the top down like a woven rug. It's all fine, then every so often big jagged holes open in it. 'Pattern of regulate and dis-regulate,' says Dr P. 

She asks me in a hurried voice - 'are you okay?' I am surprised and answer 'yes, fine'. I could do this all day.'You have good stamina for training.' And apparently my brain has scored well.  

'You have a very bright brain,' Dr P says and I love to hear it. I know I am articulate but often the mistakes I make, make me call myself 'stupid'. Down by the front desk, Dr P kindly show me how she opens the ampules.

I walk out from this session feeling braver, taller. I feel I can see more clearly, but then it's a glorious sunny day (perhaps that's all it is?) I have lunch with a friend, and explaining the gooey dabs in my hair from the conducting gel, I tell her a little about the treatment. She looks at me as if I am mad. She's seen me pursuing a number of things in pursuit of fixing myself, making myself better, and I think she thinks I am mad.

I feel in a fantastic mood all day. I walk with a new calm. I feel more quietly alert. I seem to misconstrue objects less. Often, before today I would see a shape, say from the corner of my eye, or  a silhouetted shape on a brand logo and see it a several random things before I work out what it actually is. I sit in a health food cafe waiting to my friend and I see that teh store's logo of two ducks is just that, two ducks. It's an upmarket place I've not been in before. I enjoy looking at all the unfamiliar brands and products on the shelf, noticing the absense of a kind of fug of overload. I cannot wait for the next session. Relaxed, playful, in a good mood all day, even on the tube.

Last night I watched a dvd called 'Is Anybody There' with Michael Caine dissolving into dementia. I think of my father and trying to relate to him in his declining years.

I read the news of Japan, ashamed to be thinking so much about myself and feeling grateful for the normalcy around me.